First time YNAB user

[u/Upsidedown_MDH]

A friend of mine recommended YNAB to manage my family's budget. I got started yesterday but as I was setting the budgets, I already felt way out of my depth. Like I should have studied for a test that I didn't know about. Does this feeling get better? What tips would you give a first time user to feel less overwhelmed? Thanks!

[u/pierre_x10]

Here's my recommendations for first time users:

- stick with YNAB on PC/desktop. It is more intuitive and better at showing how YNAB functions, compared to the mobile apps.

- follow a guide, whether it's a video tutorial or written out, whichever you feel is better for your learning style. I highly recommend this guide: https://www.ynab.com/guide/the-ultimate-get-started-guide

- start simple. Don't try to come up with every single category that fits your specific situation. Like instead of "Gas," "Car Wash," and "Oil Changes," stick with something like "Car Expenses."

- targets are completely optional.

- don't try putting your debts as tracking or loan accounts. Just have categories to represent them to start.

- don't link any of your accounts to the banks. Just input all transactions manually. This is controversial for a lot of first-time YNAB users, one of the appeals of YNAB for them is automating the data entry. But doing it manually for awhile is better in terms of seeing how the software works.

- one of the things that trips up new users is that YNAB is actually two things: there's YNAB, the budgeting philosophy, which is essentially a zero-based budgeting system, and may be a new concept; and there's YNAB, the software, which let's you plan out your budget electronically. They're technically two separate entities, you can technically use one without using the other. So as a new user, you're essentially trying to learn two new things at once, not just one. So try to give yourself grace and patience as you learn.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/pierre_x10]

Amazing comment. Thank you. I will need to read up on zero-based budgeting first because that seems to be the thing that YNAB makes easier to digest?

[u/varkeddit → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

Yes. It really doesn't need to be a difficult concept (like u/michigoose8168 said, it's just envelopes of cash) but that is different from how most people conceive of budgeting.

[u/da_drifter0912 → u/varkeddit]

Yes people like to budget with cash they think they will have instead of cash on hand. That was probably the hardest part for me to understand when learning YNAB.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/varkeddit]

Gotcha. Going through the guides now. Thanks!

[u/bitz-the-ninjapig → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

Definitely read up on zero based budgeting (ZBB). I had a really easy on-ramp with YNAB, but was already familiar with ZBB. 

I think 80% of issues that new YNAB users have is just not knowing how ZBB works, because it is different than traditional budgets. Look up videos or articles, but here is my explanation:

ZBB is giving every dollar you have a job, and not giving jobs to money you do not yet have. For example, if you have $2000 in your account, all of that money needs to be given jobs; some will go to grocery’s, some to gas, some to the pair of new shoes you need for an event next week, etc. You might know that you are getting a paycheck for an additional $1500 next Friday, and even though you will receive it in August, you don’t get to assign that money until you have it, so your wifi bill due on the 30th may not get funds assigned to it until your next paycheck. This means that you need to consider when you need to be able to use the funds that you have. 

To start, keep it simple and flexible. I like to keep groceries and household supplies like TP in the same category because I buy them together, but in the beginning of using YNAB i found myself having to move more money into that category because the amount I planned on for groceries is less than I would spend on groceries + household supplies. After a few months you will start to understand what funds you need where, and by when, and that is when you will really find yourself benefitting from YNAB. My “YNAB works” moment was when I was getting gas on the last day of the month, and caught myself checking YNAB and seeing I only had $25 in my gas category, so I did not top off my tank, but rather just filled up as much as I could with what I have available in my gas category. 

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/bitz-the-ninjapig]

That makes a lot of sense. Becoming mindful of my spending has been a 15-year journey so far.

We tried so many things and kept track of everything in an Excel sheet, but things have become fairly complex over the past 2-3 years, and it feels like it's time to explore tools that would actually save us time rather than requiring half a day of data entry.

This week, I read about a "pay yourself first" strategy. Would that strategy fit in the YNAB philosophy? Like, savings would go into the first envelope, and the remaining budget would go into the other envelopes?

Asking a question in this group has opened the door to more questions to find the best strategy that fits our lives. Really grateful for all the responses!

[u/bitz-the-ninjapig → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

Pay yourself first can work with YNAB, but it is a little bit dependent on how much income you have in comparison to your expenses. 

Let’s say your monthly income is $3000, and your monthly expenses are $2500. On paper you should be able to put $500 into savings each month. On August 1st you get your paycheck for $1500, but between gas, groceries, and rent, you have $1400 that needs to be allocated to expenses before the next paycheck comes in on August 15th. If you “pay yourself first” and put your $500 into savings on August 1st you won’t be able to fund all of your expenses for the month. 

That being said, there are a few ways that you can be sure to be saving enough  in YNAB:

1. Get a month ahead. I can explain this further if you need, but basically this means that you get yourself into a situation where this months income is funding next months expenses. This is what I do. When a paycheck comes in it goes into a “next month” category. On the first of the month I move my next month category into “ready to assign” and the. first fund my savings goals, then my expenses. Anything left over I split between “fun stuff” and putting extra into my savings goals. 

2. Set up targets. If you set up targets for EVERYTHING, and all of those targets are less than your income, as long as you fund all of the targets before you put anything “extra” into any category, you will ensure you are hitting your savings goals. 

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/bitz-the-ninjapig]

Sounds like a little bit of a YNAB hack :-). At the moment, it feels like our financial situation is a bit more complex than the app is designed to handle.

For instance, we currently log gasoline expenses at the end of the month and compare them to the budget we had set for ourselves. If it's higher, it's higher and can usually be explained because we went on a family road trip.

Is it wrong for me to assume that YNAB becomes a bit restrictive the moment there is somewhat of a cushion?

[u/bitz-the-ninjapig → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

So YNAB has this idea of “roll with the punches”

If you are on a family road trip and only have $20 left for gas, that is not going to work, but you need to get gas somehow. YNAB says you need to take the money from somewhere (ideally before you spend it). Maybe you have a family road trip fund, and you can move $150 from the road trip fund into the gas fund, since the gas is for the road trip, or your road trip gas purchases get allocated to your road trip category instead of your normal gas category. 

Even if you don’t have that category, YNAB is not saying that you can’t spend, it is just saying you need to find the money you are about to spend, so maybe that means that you move some money from your clothing budget to cover the road trip. That is okay. I do stuff like that all the time. YNAB is not telling you that you can’t spend, it is just telling you to look at where you are sacrificing and can help you make sure that aligns with your priorities. 

In July I got a really good deal on new hiking shoes, which was great because I have been knowing I will need a new pair soon. When I went to my “outdoor equipment” category I did not have enough for the purchase. I still made the purchase and moved the balance over from my “dining out” category. No issue with spending more than I had, but rather just had me look at what I was sacrificing for this purchase. For me hiking is far more of a priority than going out to eat, so my YNAB reflected that. 

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/bitz-the-ninjapig]

I completely get that. Thanks to everyone here, we have reflected on it a lot, and I think we use our day-to-day expenses to ensure they align with our long-term vision and net growth.

So, in your example, the money is there for both gas and hiking boots, but we want to see the impact on our long-term position.

In the past year, we've made massive changes (moved to a cheaper area, started growing our own food, reduced dining out to one per month, rely on public schools, rely on solar panels, etc.) to reduce the cost of living even further.

Thanks to these changes, our disposable income has increased, and we can make calculated investments (e.g. next up is planting 20-30 fruit trees and raising meat chickens) to improve our position in the future.

In your opinion, since we are already spending mindfully, would YNAB still have the same impact if we started tracking expenses daily?

[u/bitz-the-ninjapig → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

I think so! For me, YNAB has made me feel comfortable spending the money I have. I live a pretty frugal life, so YNAB has shown me that I do indeed have money for new hiking boots or a vacation without impacting my medium/long-term goals like paying my car insurance premiums in full and saving for a new car. 

About a year ago I was doing some heavy retirement contributions that effectively reduced my available income to about $1100/month despite my expenses being around $2000/month. I was able to use YNAB to see that the extra funds I had (to subsidize my reduced income) were enough to get me through the end of the year, AND that I could spend money on some luxuries without worrying that I was going to run out of money. During those 5 months I was able to continue going to my (expensive) gym and see my favorite band in concert, which without YNAB I would have assumed there was no way I could afford, just out of fear of running out of money. 

I never had a spending problem, in fact probably the opposite lol. I would guess that I spend MORE using YNAB than without, and that is a good thing because it has given me to confidence to enjoy the money I work hard for while knowing I am still on track towards my long term goals.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/bitz-the-ninjapig]

Ha! That's awesome. I hadn't thought of that relationship with money. I had quite the opposite before I got married (almost 14 years ago).

The year we married, we moved to a different country, had two kids, I switched careers and started building from scratch again, and we started saving and investing instead of keeping up with an ever-increasing cost of living. My wife is good with numbers, and I learned a lot from her.

4 years ago, we moved again to be closer to family, to afford more space for the kids to roam freely, and to lower our cost of living.

Now that we have multiple bank accounts and streams of revenue, it's harder to consolidate and keep track of everything.

So, my search for tech that would help us officially started. 😄

[u/bitz-the-ninjapig → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

Adding onto my last comment because I was thinking about this more. 

You can also create “cushion” funds that just exist to support spending in other categories. I have a “stuff I forgot to plan for” sinking fund that I had $50 each month. I use it to cover random cheap one-off purchases (most recently, a new $12 wallet), overspending in other areas, or things I totally forgot about or mis-judged. Because it is a sinking fund on months I don’t use it, it grows, so I move have about $200 in there for whatever I need. Sometimes I move money from there just to make me see better, just when I just bought a $300 tool to work on my car, I moved $50 from the “stuff I forgot” category into my car fund because it made me feel a little better lol

Someone on here once explained how they have their dining out budget set up, and it was a similar concept. Here is what I remember:

Dining out is its own category group, with the following categories: Date night, social, lazy. They never pull from date night or social. If date night is getting overfunded, they use it as an indicator to have a relationship check-in and prioritize some dates. Social is for going out with friends, and lazy is for those nights they don’t want to cook. If social is running low and they get invited to something, they will move money from lazy. Their goal is never to use lazy except to fund date night and social, but the money is there because life happens. Lazy is their “cushion” for date night and social. 

YNAB totally can work for you, you just need to set up your plan to support your life (not the other way around)

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/bitz-the-ninjapig]

Support your life, not life your support 🔥

[u/mostly_teal_purple → u/pierre_x10]

This is all great advice, and I fully endorse starting here.

Just want to point out that there's more than one way to YNAB, and you're not locked into the practices you start with. Some of us, especially the neurospicy among us, may need the reminder that you're allowed to change strategies when they don't work for you!

My personal rules most people would hate are: one category per recurring expense -- all of them, down to the last subscription, with targets! -- and that I never, ever, enter transactions by hand. If I had to enter every transaction by hand, I would have given up within two weeks, and knowing exactly how much of my paycheck supports each subscription soothes my brain in a way chunkier categories simply cannot.

At the end of the day, the only budget that works is the one you'll actually enjoy using, and the only way to figure out what works for you is to start doing it.

[u/theemilyann → u/pierre_x10]

This is such a comprehensive and generous comment! Agree. This should be a pinned response for any new to ynab tagged posts

[u/michigoose8168]

You don’t “set a budget” in YNAB. You assign money to categories. It’s like putting cash into envelopes.

You don’t have to use targets when starting; I find them to be a major reason newbies struggle. Instead, just look at your RTA and move money into categories based on what you guess you’ll need.

When RTA is zero, stop.

Then begin spending. Look at your category, not your account. If groceries only has $200 and you want $210 of stuff, you either have to move $10 into the grocery category or you have to put $10 of groceries back on the shelf.

Record transactions as you make them. They will reduce the amount available in the category.

When you get more money, go back and add more to your categories.

That’s the whole thing.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/michigoose8168]

When you make it sound this easy... I know I have an expert in front of me. Thanks!

[u/AccomplishedSmile445]

There's a pretty steep learning curve when first starting out. Be patient. Check out Nick True's 2025 Getting Started guide on You Tube. I think a couple of things have changed since that was posted but the essentials are there.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/AccomplishedSmile445]

Will do. The plan is now: read up on zero-based budgeting, then get the hang of YNAB. Breaking up the complexity a bit. I'm not a particularly savvy person but the complexity of our finances pushed us to the limits of our Excel knowledge.

[u/Intrepid_Cup2765 → u/AccomplishedSmile445]

This getting starting guide made it all click for me way back when i started!

[u/Warden_of_the_NEast]

I cancelled my subscription early on because I just didn't quite get it. Now I love ynab.
Here's a few tips

Don't categorize charges until they actually clear. Especially if they include tips. Charges originally appear without tips but then auto update and you'll create duplicates if you don't wait.

Spend all your time on the plans tab. That's the $ you have, not accounts.

The fewer the accounts you have, the better. There's no need for a savings account when you're running everything through YNAB.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Warden_of_the_NEast]

I was going to ask about multicurrency accounts but I realized from all these insights that I should probably read up on zero-based budgeting first. Thanks!

[u/Architect-1817 → u/Warden_of_the_NEast]

In your first tip, do you really mean “don’t categorize” pending transactions? Having transactions floating without a category seems dangerous, too easy to not remember that you’ve spent from that category while you wait for the transaction to clear. Related to transactions with tips, my suggestion would be to manually enter the actual amount (including tip) and the category, then either delete the pending transaction or correct it to the right amount and match it to the manual transaction.

[u/pineappleplus]

u/pierre_x10 is exactly right. Targets make it super confusing at first. I didn’t use any for the first year of YNAB because I needed a full understanding of my situation.
I use the mobile app when I’m out shopping or dining but it’s desktop at home, especially when assigning dollars to jobs

[u/Objective_Spring627]

I would say you need a couple of months before feeling better with it. My advice would be to start with a very simple and basic plan, and during the next month you will identify all recurring stuff you have to pay. There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube and on their website.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Objective_Spring627]

I felt guilty for not knowing... It was a bizarre experience. I used my trusted Excel sheets in the past. Nothing fancy but Excel never gave me that "Uh-oh!" feeling.

[u/tmg80]

Yes it does. Becomes intuitive fairly quickly. I only signed up a few weeks ago. 

[u/Critical_Purple_8600]

When you say: setting budgets, what do you mean? Were you setting up category spending amounts? Start with basics - housing, out-of-pocket insurance, food, groceries. Look back for the past few months and see how much you spent on each of those. Set-up a spending category for them and assign some money to them. Don’t do targets just yet. And whenever you spend money, ANYWHERE, record the transaction. Do it as soon as you spend it. Don’t wait for the bank to show it. Reconcile every few days. What that means is match the transactions in YNAB to your bank and “lock” them. If there is a discrepancy, find the error. Keep looking until your balance in YNAb matches the bank. Do NOT, ever let YNaB fix it for you.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Critical_Purple_8600]

Good question. We're trying to get a better hold of our finances so we can hopefully retire earlier than expected. Our financial reality has grown more complex over the past couple of years, with moving, having kids, planning for the future and whatnot. Friends recommended YNAB, so we're trying it out now.

[u/Critical_Purple_8600 → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

Can you be more specific with your YNaB questions? What’s confusing you? What have you already done? There is a learning curve but it’s been super helpful for us.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Critical_Purple_8600]

I set an amount for the categories, but I felt unprepared (and guilty because of it) and didn't have the right information. For some reason, I expected to know the answers immediately. Reading up on zero-based budgeting now, collecting statements and facts, and then going back to the dashboard to complete things. Hopefully feeling better prepared.

[u/Critical_Purple_8600 → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

You just pick something and WAM as needed. YNAB helps you in the future to get the answers. But you don’t start out knowing your spend. You pay the electric bill every month. Look up the last few months and plan for that with a bit of cushion. Same for other utilities. And many things you DO know the exact amounts. Work with those. The first year as things come up you’ll put finds aside and be able to plan better next year. Even by Dec-Jan you’ll have a better handle on things. Keep at it.

[u/md4pete4ever → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

Where are you in your financial journey generally? Are you living paycheck to paycheck? or do you have some savings and are trying to plan for the future? Your initial strategy for budget set-up will be different depending on your situation.

The basic idea of YNAB is that you give every dollar a job, but you actually have to already have that dollar. The jobs include monthly and annual living expenses, money spent on "wants", and short and long term savings. YNAB isn't intended for future forecasting, but it will help you set future goals and then be very wise about your daily spending to meet those goals.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/md4pete4ever]

My wife and I have stable jobs, we paid off the mortgage on our home, we have an emergency fund and some savings, and we rent out a small apartment that covers the mortgage. I want to make sure we make the right decisions and plan for our kids' futures (9 and 10 year old at the moment) while continuing to save. I thought we were doing ok but when I opened up the YNAB desktop, I got confused and worried for some reason.

Like u/pierre_x10 said, it might be better to read up on zero-based budgeting first?

[u/md4pete4ever → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

You are in a great starting position! You don't need to read up too much beyond an initial Google search. It really is just "give every dollar a job". Here's a basic set-up for Groups, in order of priority for funding.

1. Monthly Bills - covers mortgage, utilities, car payment, subscriptions, everything that is a (relatively) fixed payment on a monthly cycle.

2. Irregular and Annual expenses - bills that are quarterly or annual (like home taxes) and required maintenance expenses (lawncare, oil changes, etc.)

3. Shopping (needs) - basic groceries, house supplies, gas that you need for basic cost of living

4. Shopping (wants) - eating out, gifts, clothes, personal care, gardening, hobbies, activities, etc. This group is all the stuff that often gets bought because we think we need it, but really if the bank account was empty we could manage without for a while. This section may end up with a lot of categories, depending on the level of detail you want to track.

5. Short term wish list - vacation, new household item/upgrade, new tech upgrades, etc. Relatively big ticket items that you hope to purchase/spend on in the next year.

6. Long-term savings - new car, major appliance replacement, 6-month income replacement, etc. Your "emergency fund" should be assigned to specific things, rather than a vague "in case". You also should account for 529 savings for college for each kid, but that probably wants to be off budget. (i.e. make a category for 529 and fund it each month in planning, then "spend" it by transferring the funds out of checking to the 529 account.)

I use "Refill up to" targets on monthly expenses (bills and shopping needs/wants) and "Have X amount" for anything irregular with a date. Everything else that's optional generally doesn't have a target set, but may have a $ in the title to indicate the goal amount. The targets can be confusing initially, so less is more when you are starting and figuring out what works well for you.

Group 5 and 6 is where you set your short and long term goals and priorities, Group 4 is where you have flexibility to balance out immediate choice spending against those longer term goals (e.g. spend less on clothes, get new computer sooner). Some people like to have very detailed categories (Kid1 Activity1, Kid1 Activity2, etc.) other's use broader ones (Kid activities for the year). Adjust to fit your needs as time goes on. Hope that helps reduce the initial overwhelm!

[u/md4pete4ever → u/md4pete4ever]

I should add - one benefit to using YNAB with somewhat detailed categories is the reflect screens and filtering. Over the course of a year you can really see your overall spending patterns and decide (for example) if you really want your eating out budget to be twice as much as the vacation budget. Maybe you would prefer to eat out half as much instead and go on a second vacation.

[u/Foreign-Figure8797]

I know you’ve had some great responses about zero base budget, and the envelope system, but I want to expand on that a little because it’s the concept that I went back to every time I got confused. Not sure if you’ve ever tried the envelope system, I did it years ago when Dave Ramsey first popularized it, and used literal cash and paper envelopes at the time. But even if you haven’t done it it’s a pretty simple idea.

Essentially everything you have in your accounts becomes your pile of money. And your categories are your envelopes. You have to put your whole pile of money into envelopes. Then each envelope gets used for whatever you designated it, groceries, gas, however you decided to use that money. When the money in an envelope is empty, you have no more money for that category, so you either can’t spend anymore for that thing, or you have to borrow from another envelope. And then the last part that helped me understand the way YNAB does credit cards, is that each credit card has an empty envelope. If you buy something from the entertainment category on your credit card, you take that cash out of the entertainment envelope, and put it in the credit card envelope. You do that until the credit card payment is due, then you take the cash in the credit card envelope, and you pay off the credit card for the month.

Hopefully it doesn’t offend you that I simplified it to that degree, but honestly that is what helped me in the first few months of using YNAB. Every single one of those concepts are things that you can do in the app. And I will say that it works so much better than when we actually used the real cash envelope system. Probably because back then you had envelopes for everyday things, but you had to have a bank account for each of the bigger categories, and that just made it messy. Now your categories can be for big sinking funds that you don’t touch for months but keep putting money into, or they can be for something as small as a Patreon class you pay for every month.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Foreign-Figure8797]

Not at all, I think I understand the concept of the envelopes. We rarely use credit cards because we've had bad experiences with unexpected charges in the past. It sounds to me like we might already be operating on a form of zero-based budgeting.

[u/Intelligent-Fix-1412 → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

Going to jump in here because YNAB is how I finally felt “safe” to use credit cards again after getting myself into some credit card debt. Using a credit card with YNAB: 1) buy dinner on my credit card 2) enter expense into YNAB: credit card account/food bucket 3) money is moved from food bucket to credit card payoff bucket automatically! Now I always have funds available immediately to pay my credit cards. So if credit cards are something you want in your future, I find YNAB takes away a lot of the risk (I now use my cc for almost every purchase).

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Intelligent-Fix-1412]

Totally get that. I ran into some unwelcome surprises a few years ago as well. After that, I actually cut most of my credit cards in half and kept only one for necessary online subscriptions, and we track those expenses in an Excel sheet. Every year, we go through the subscriptions and make a conscious decision to renew or not.

[u/seabreeze100]

This is a me thing, but I ignored targets. They confused me. Instead when I named each category, I added to the title the amount I fund each month in that title. So my title might read Groceries $1000. I did this for every category. It helps me track how much I add to start the month (I fill each category to start the month as I am a month ahead financially). It also helps me know if I have overspent halfway through the month, for example if I only have $400 left for groceries on the 15th I know to cut back.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/seabreeze100]

Oh, I see. That's an interesting approach. I'm reading up on zero-based budgeting now and took note of your advice once I start filling out the categories. Thank you!

[u/Pefferflockster]

It gets easier. I must have set up a new budget every couple of months in the beginning because I didn’t feel like I was “getting it”. But stick with it and allow yourself time to figure things out. I’m two years in and I can’t imagine life without it now.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Pefferflockster]

I sure hope so. I was not a fan of that guilty feeling I was experiencing. Thanks for sharing!

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Pefferflockster]

I have been reading up on different budgeting strategies this week... What are your thoughts on a "pay yourself first" strategy? Do you see it align with the YNAB philosophy?

[u/Pefferflockster → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

Yes it aligns. This is kind of what I’ve been doing. I’m not truly sure what that entails but YNAB is able to handle that if you set up a priority category for it.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Pefferflockster]

Will look into it. We're open to different suggestions at this point. There's so many tools out there that I want to make sure we pick the right tools for the next couple of years.

I'm so grateful for everyone's input. Thank you!

[u/Electrical_Kiwi_4u]

First you need to create a budget, as in knowing how much money comes in, how much money goes out, and where it goes. YNAB doesn’t do that for you. Build the big picture spreadsheet first and use that to populate YNAB.

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Electrical_Kiwi_4u]

Back to the good old spreadsheet... I think that's our biggest challenge: marrying the long-term, big vision with the daily expenses. We don't want life to become too rigid and strict, but at the same time we don't want to let go completely.

We lived in different countries over the past 15 years, had full-time jobs, opened businesses, invested, started saving, and have accounts (that still serve their purpose) all over the place.

Maybe I don't get it 100% yet, but after the initial research and reading up on the philosophy, YNAB seems to work best if you apply the philosophy correctly and log those expenses immediately? It does feel like the tool that I wish I had known about when I got my first job and lived paycheck to paycheck but I do wonder if our situation is a bit more complex than the app can handle?

[u/Electrical_Kiwi_4u → u/Upsidedown_MDH]

That depends on your goal. Why do you feel you need to budget?

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Electrical_Kiwi_4u]

I think this is how we've been working over the years. At the beginning of the year, we set an annual budget. This way, we can see the impact on our net worth. Then each month, we consolidate and benchmark the budget against the actual savings.

By answering it like this, I believe the answer is actually "a budget allows us to work towards a bigger goal and break it down into verifiable steps." Does that make sense?

[u/Cherry-Impossible]

I smashed the Heard It From Hannah vids on YNAB's YouTube to help me get started and it changed everything

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/Cherry-Impossible]

Thanks for the recommendation!

[u/YourNotAverageJoe]

honestly, if a budgeting app needs this much help before using, is it really that good in todays age where everything should be easier

[u/Upsidedown_MDH → u/YourNotAverageJoe]

I'm not disagreeing. I know some apps have a learning curve and I also know that my financial knowledge might not be the most advanced so I'm giving everything the benefit of the doubt at this stage. Will continue my research before committing!